Advertisement
A fast metabolism is the highly sought-after Holy-Grail of weight loss that everyone is working to fine-tune and fire up.
It's so sought-after, in fact, that according to Shape Magazine, marketers are gearing their advertisements to it. "A quick Google search for 'metabolism' turns out some 75 million hits--more than 'obesity,' (10 million) 'weight loss,' (34 million) and 'Kate Upton' (1.4 million) combined!"
Thanks to would-be health gurus, misinformation, common misconceptions, and rumors, you might have your metabolism all wrong. You might think your new diet will rev up your metabolism, but you might actually be slowing it down.
To keep yourself from falling for tricky marketing ploys and faulty weight-loss promises, read some of the myths research has busted below:
1. Eating breakfast boosts your metabolism.
A new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition had more than 300 overweight participants consume diets that included either eating or skipping breakfast. After 16 weeks, participants who ate breakfast did not lose any more weight than those who did not. A second study in the same journal found eating breakfast has absolutely no impact on the metabolism. Breakfast is an important meal, regardless of it's impact on your metabolism. Eating a sustainable breakfast that will keep you full and focused until lunch is essential for those on a diet.
2. "Hot" workouts help you lose more weight.
Many people still like to believe that sweat is "your fat crying"--however, that's a misconception. Recent studies have come out that suggest that workout out in hot temperatures actually do not help you lose any more weight than if you had done the same workout in a room at a normal temperature. Another study suggests that workout out in cooler temperatures is actually more beneficial for weight loss. In the study, participants were split into three groups and asked to sleep in varying temperatures: a neutral 75 degrees, a cool 66 degrees, and a warm 81 degrees. After four weeks, those that slept in the cool room had almost doubled their calorie-burning brown fat.
3. Extremely spicy foods "burn" belly fat.
You've likely heard the studies that suggest extremely spice foods, like the compound capsaicin (usually found in chili peppers), can boost your metabolism. Can't handle the burn? No problem! There are new studies that suggest milder foods can boost your metabolism as well! A study presented at the Experimental Biology meeting in Anaheim, California, suggests that the compound dihydrocapsiate (DCT), capsaicin's less-spicy cousin, is just as effective at boosting the metabolism.
4. Six small meals throughout the day will rev up your metabolism.
A few years back, the new diet trend was to stretch out your calories for the day into five or six small meals a day to keep your metabolism up all day. Body builders were powerful supporters of the trend, and long swore by it's benefits. However, a new study suggests three square meals might be more beneficial than five or six small meals. A study in the journal Hepatology put two groups of men on weight-gain diets. One group divided the calories among three small meals with snacks in between while the second group ate the same number of calories in three square meals during the day. While both group did gain weight, researchers found the belly fat only increased in those eating the first meal plan.
5. One pound of muscle burns 100 calories a day.
Fact: a pound of brain burns 109 calories a day. It's got a lot to do, after all! However, some would-be fitness gurus took that little fact and ran with it. According to a report in the journal Obesity, skeletal muscle actually has a very low metabolic rate when at rest, at just 6 calories per pound. It's true that that's three times as much as fat, so it does play a role in daily fat-burn, but you might be better off building your brain power.
What do you think about this? Which one surprised you the most? Let us know what you think in the comments!
Photo Copyright © 2014 slimmingtipsblog/Flickr
